The use of hybrid drive vehicles is becoming more common. Hybrid drive vehicles typically utilize their electric battery until road conditions or a low battery charge necessitates the use of the alternate internal combustion engine. Exemplary road conditions requiring an internal combustion engine may include a steep grade, fast acceleration requirements, long distances at high speed as well as merely reaching a low battery charge with normal use.
Contrarily, an internal combustion engine is not necessary when moving downhill. In fact, such a situation is an electric charging opportunity for a hybrid vehicle.
It is a fact of physics that a cold start of an internal combustion engine is fuel and emissions inefficient as some fuel is wasted as the fuel and combustion cycle starts. Similarly, emissions at startup are at their least efficient because engine and emissions components are not at efficient operating temperatures.
New “off board inputs” like GPS and mapping data are now available that can dramatically improve the emission performance of hybrid vehicles by the advance start of chosen systems by foretelling their used using GPS information. However, a problem is that many of these input systems are neither monitored nor diagnosed by the emissions control system. Thus, reliability in-use during both failed and non-failed conditions of these systems or upstream pre-requisite systems is questionable. Thus, it is desirable to develop a method/apparatus to certify Telematics/Position inputs to the propulsion control system to advance start, and provide a relatively consistent performance to those inputs. For example, because many customers drive their vehicles in very repetitive drive routes, it is important for the enablement of a given feature be consistent, and communicated to the driver, so if an engine start decision changes, a customer will take note of possible things that may have contributed to the enablement of the algorithm (heavy rain affecting GPS reception, etc.). Similarly, from the perspective of the automaker, it is desirable that sufficient accuracy is present in the inputs to control before controls operation is modified.
As such, it is also desirable to anticipate the need (or lack thereof) for an internal combustion engine start so that the internal combustion engine may be prepared in advance of its need thereby allowing the start process to be performed in the most efficient manner. Herein, various methods for enabling/disabling functions for control of internal combustions engines using GPS are disclosed.
Further, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.